Out of Control

Sen. Barbara Boxer promises to do that and more to increase the affordable housing stock.

But instead of doing so much, why not try undoing some things?

I just interviewed Burt Rutan, and here’s what he had to say about the importance of fun:

[Space tourism is] going to be a big industry. Just like personal computers. But it’s mainly just for fun.

You’ve got to have thousands, tens of thousands, of people enjoying it in order to figure out what to do with it. We never would have invented the use of the Internet, the communication, and the commerce, and everything if you had just a few dozen people with computers.

So I look at this suborbital phase that we’ll go through, and I think we’ll always have suborbital space flight, but I think the main thing is, is that people are going to flat enjoy it. And it’s going to be absolutely thrilling. They’re going to be floating their bodies around big cabins. It’s not going to be just like the SpaceShipOne flights. There’s going to be a lot more things you can do for the experience.

Read the whole interview here.

If you were even halfway tuned in to the news cycle yesterday, you undoubtedly heard about the latest doom and gloom news on the state of the world's environment. Press coverage surrounding the release of the United Nations' Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Report (full report here) overwhelmingly focused on the more sensational aspects of the report (see here, here, and here, for example).

We were told that humans are damaging the Earth at an unprecedented rate, with two thirds of the ecological systems that sustain life on the planet having been polluted or over-exploited over the last 50 years. We heard about the irreversible loss in biodiversity. And we heard that it's going to get worse unless we do something now.

But once the sensational bad news was delivered, the media dropped the ball on what the report had to offer by way of possible remedies. And as Tim Worstall writes on Tech Central Station, one of the possible remedies discussed in the report was free market environmentalism:

There are four alternative routes to a solution offered, one of them described thusly:

More specifically, in Global Orchestration trade barriers are eliminated, distorting subsidies are removed, and a major emphasis is placed on eliminating poverty and hunger.

That is, that environmental degradation would be best reduced by more trade, more economic growth and less taxation and interference by Governments. It's almost as if these people have been reading Iain Murray of these pages or something, actually agreeing with the point that free market environmentalism actually works, indeed, works better than the alternatives.

. . . .

Now that's what I call shocking and almost unbelievable, that 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, working under the auspices of the United Nations, seem to have drunk the free market Kool-Aid. The end result of this years-long investigation is that us free market tree hugger and greenie types are actually correct in our contention that it is not the presence of markets, or the failure of markets, that leads to the devastation, it is the absence of markets. Just as we have had to, in centuries gone by, work out a system of laws that allows markets to flourish, thereby leading to the most efficient usage of resources, so now the task is to do the same for those areas of life where there are no markets. In water, pollution, fishing quotas, tropical forestry, in, in fact, all those sectors where we face the Tragedy of the Commons.

Many of us writers here at TCS have said so before, there now being a terrible temptation to say "we told you so", but I really don't think that any one of us ever believed that the United Nations would come out and say it. We now actually have a sensible framework for how to solve these problems, let's get to it, eh?

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

Last fall, the Natural Resources Defense Council released an alarmist report claiming that hotter temperatures caused by global warming would speed the formation of smog, resulting in fewer healthy air days, restrictions on outdoor activities, and increased health threats to those with asthma and other respiratory troubles.

But don't worry...our friends in the free-market think tank world (including Reason Senior Fellow Joel Schwartz) smelled something fishy and have offered a response:

A comprehensive new analysis by top air quality and climate experts refutes recent claims that global warming will lead to more bad air days in more than a dozen U.S. cities. The analysis shows that the air quality in Atlanta and throughout the U.S. has dramatically improved over the last thirty years and that there is no strong link between temperature and ozone. Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on air quality.

Results of the analysis, Air Quality False Alarm, An Analysis of the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Heat Advisory" Report, were published today by United for Jobs, The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, The John Locke Foundation and the Pacific Research Institute.

"The Natural Resource Defense Council's analysis is faulty and its conclusions are false and misleading," said Karen Kerrigan, president and CEO of the Small Business Entrepreneurship Council and United for Jobs co-chair.

According to EPA ozone monitoring data over the last 30 years ozone levels have declined even though urban temperatures have increased. On average cities have achieved a 95% decrease in the average number of "red alert" days (1-hour ozone exceedances) per year and a 75% decrease in the number of "orange" alert days (8-hour ozone exceedances). Increases in temperatures in cities is attributable to urban heat island effect, rather then global warming.

The full study is available here.

Here's some perspective on urban sprawl from aBetterEarth.org:

Obviously, urban sprawl isn’t going to go away. It is a fact of American life that many want to own an affordable home in a quiet neighborhood. It is also a fact of the market that, as long as people want these things, some way to provide them will be found. Sometimes, that will come at the cost of farmland, forests, and habitat.

By the same token, though, urban sprawl probably would never have even become an environmental issue without the massive government spending that sponsors the creation of "leapfrogs," communities built far outside large cities, bringing infill developments all along the brand new, state-funded highway that connects the two.

If the government quit subsidizing developments either way, then the market would really be free to determine whether or not large, sprawling suburbs are the best way to grow. And that’s the kind of growth that might actually be smart.

Full article here.

Perhaps you’ve seen that ad that shows a kid growing up, making all the right life choices.

Drugs? No thanks. Drop out of school? No way!

Then, at the end, we learn that this well-adjusted member of society has preschool to thank for his well-adjustedness.

The real story might be quite different:

...early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but it also boosts children's classroom behavioral problems and reduces their self-control. Further, for most children the positive effects of pre-kindergarten on skills largely dissipate by the spring of first grade, although the negative behavioral effects continue.

That’s from a new NBER study.

(Via Tyler Cowen).

How often do you hear about a local government agency that has traditionally survived on federal funding actually step up and say, "we'd rather be independent from the feds, so why don't we just go our separate ways"? Basically never? Well...better grab your seats, because today's the day.

The Housing Authority in the City of Dalton, GA has become the first local housing authority to completely sever it's relationship with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD):

"The Dalton Housing Authority severed ties with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday, and HUD officials said it was first housing authority in the nation to do so.

Dalton's independence is an example of what HUD has been trying to do nationally, said Michael Liu, assistant secretary for Public and Indian Housing.

"This is a template. This is the future of public housing," Mr. Liu said. "To be considered the first is quite a feat."

Pat Johnson, executive director of the Dalton Housing Authority, said the development is "wonderful, and it's groundbreaking. We're on our own and can do as we please. People should always be independent if they can, and we could. We're a work in progress.

. . . .

Freedom from HUD's thousands of pages of regulations, such as penalties for missing deadlines, is just one benefit of being independent, Ms. Johnson said.

Mr. Liu said the authority now also can leverage assets without HUD's approval and use its assets to get loans without HUD being first in line.

Ms. Johnson said the housing authority does not depend on HUD for funding and receives virtually all of its revenue from the rent its more than 600 residents pay. With its independence will come greater flexibility for the authority to maintain its properties, officials said."

The full article is here, and the official HUD press release is available here. It adds the following:

HACD will have the flexibility to set its own rents based on local market conditions; raise additional capital to improve the physical condition of the existing units; use its valuable real estate assets to leverage additional capital to expand its affordable housing goals; and create its own local incentives to encourage current residents to become self sufficient.

The transfer of these properties offers HACD the opportunity to become an entrepreneur and true affordable housing provider for residents of Dalton. In order to seek private sources to finance large-scale modernization and capital improvements of its developments, HACD needed to assume full control of its assets. This approach will allow the housing authority to maximize the value of its assets and target its affordable housing resources, to better meet the need for affordable housing in Dalton.

Can you smell that breath of fresh air? It's still early, but not too soon to hope that Dalton's example will get the ball rolling for housing authorities nationwide to start weaning themselves from the federal dole. And this process could spur all sorts of innovations that will make the road easier for others to follow.

This is exciting news, and something to keep an eye on in the future.

(Hat tip: Planetizen.com)

Thomas Huckaby is a computer programmer. His employer is located in New York, but he only spends about a quarter of his time there. He mostly works from Tennessee.

For Huckaby and his employer this arrangement seems to work well. Not so for the state of New York, where officials haven’t cheered telecommuting as an innovation that reduces congestion, cuts business costs, and gives workers more flexibility.

Nope, officials there just want “their” tax money. Looks like they’ve won:

Commuters from out of state who take cars, trains and buses to jobs in New York have long grumbled about having to pay New York State income tax. A ruling handed down on Tuesday by the state's highest court found that the growing ranks of telecommuters from out of state must also pay.

The Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 3 that a computer programmer for a group of trade unions in Queens who works mostly out of his home in Nashville must pay New York State tax on all his income, not just on part.

The Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 3 that a computer programmer for a group of trade unions in Queens who works mostly out of his home in Nashville must pay New York State tax on all his income, not just on part.

The programmer, Thomas L. Huckaby, had argued that since he worked only a quarter of the time in Queens, he should pay New York tax on only a quarter of his income. But the court ruled that because the source of Mr. Huckaby's income was in New York - and because he was in Tennessee as a matter of personal convenience, and not because his employer needed him to work there - he must pay tax on his full income.

The decision, by Judge Susan Phillips Read, stated that he "is the one who chose to accept employment from a New York employer (with the advantages of a New York salary and fringe benefits) while maintaining his residence in Tennessee, some 900 miles and a two-hour plane trip distant from his New York employer's office."

In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Robert S. Smith wrote that he was "aware of no case in which it has been held, or even argued, that an in-state source of payment for services done outside the state is a constitutionally valid basis for taxing the recipient of the payment."

State officials were pleased because the decision upheld their rule governing the taxation of people who live outside the state.

For more on telecommuting, go here.

The next Privatization Watch, which will be online soon, focuses on health care.

Speaking of which, from the Charlotte Observer:

A private company will begin providing health care for Union County Jail inmates April 1, saving the county about $140,000 and bringing increased services and staff hours to the jail.

County commissioners Monday unanimously approved a contract with Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS), one of three firms vying for the job.

The company is the nation's largest private provider of inmate health services and serves jails in Mecklenburg and Gaston counties. But PHS has been under fire for some of its dealings in other states, where critics have accused it of providing subpar care.

Commissioners and County Manager Mike Shalati expressed confidence in the Union plan, however, and praised Sheriff Eddie Cathey for taking steps to save the county money.

The jail infirmary serves a vital need in often-difficult circumstances, Cathey said, noting that he has no problems with the way the current staff has performed.

But costs there have increased $295,000 -- 102 percent -- since July 2002, Cathey said.

Even as the jail's average daily population has fallen -- from 254 in 2003 to 226 in 2004 -- per-inmate health costs rose 20 percent.

From a study by Raven E. Saks:

Whereas a 1 percent increase in labor demand generally leads to a 1 percent increase in the long-run level of employment, the employment response is less than 0.8 percent in places where the housing supply is constrained.

Really, it’s true.

According to a new study:

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans …

The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent), according to the study. But liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent) …

In contrast with the finding that nearly three-quarters of college faculty are liberal, a Harris Poll of the general public last year found that 33 percent describe themselves as conservative and 18 percent as liberal.

Yikes! How about this?

65 percent want the government to ensure full employment, a stance to the left of the Democratic Party.

Society never gets its act together fast enough to satisfy activists. Take obesity. We’re a nation of fatsos, and we hear about it in study after study. Fingers start pointing, and the activists blame the fast food industry, a.k.a "Big Fat."

But now things are changing. Today it's possible to go to Burger King and fill up on a grilled chicken Whopper (you can even hold the mayo) or a big bowl of salad, topped with grilled chicken or shrimp.

Fast food joints are hustling to cater to a more health-conscious public, but there will always be a market for stuff like this:

[Burger King] debuted its Enormous Omelet Sandwich Monday. The sandwich has one sausage patty, two eggs, two American cheese slices and three strips of bacon.

That works out to 730 calories and 47 grams of fat -- more than a Whopper burger, which the Burger King Web site said has 700 calories and 42 grams of fat.

This is actually good news for food Puritans. It means they’ll always have the opportunity to sound off on a new outrage:

"The critics will still label it food porn," Sherri Daye Scott, editor at fast-food magazine QSR, told USA Today, which first reported the story. "But the average male fast-food customer does not have a problem with this."

Scott was right -- the new breakfast sandwich was quickly criticized due to health concerns.

"Eating like this is a step on the way to a heart attack," Fred Pescatore, author of The Hamptons Diet told the paper. "It's irresponsible."

Morgan Spurlock, who ridiculed McDonald's in the documentary film "Super Size Me," told the paper that Burger King's new breakfast sandwich, "should come with a $5-off coupon for your first angioplasty."

Walk around America’s cities and eventually you notice something: there aren’t a lot of kids:

After interviewing 300 parents who had left [Portland], researchers at Portland State found that high housing costs and a desire for space were the top reasons.

Tina Ray lived in Portland for 12 years before moving to Gresham, where her 9-year-old daughter attends school. Her family left for a bigger house and more space, she said. "It's kid friendly, with a great sense of community, and lots of sports leagues," she said.

Many Portland families are relocating to the newest edge suburbs, where housing prices are cheapest, including Clark County across the Columbia River in Washington, Portland State demographers say …

San Francisco, where the median house price is now about $700,000, had the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent, compared with 25.7 percent nationwide, the 2000 census reported. Seattle, where there are more dogs than children, was a close second.

It’s kind of funny watching local officials, always trying to get their city’s demographics “just right.”

First they’re fixated on coolness—got to get all those young hipsters. Then, when families head for the suburbs, it’s time to reverse course:

Other cities have tried and failed to curb family flight. In Portland, the new mayor, Tom Potter, says demography does not have to be destiny. He has dedicated his term to trying to keep children in the city... He has been bringing children in to speak to the City Council and has pushed for incentives for affordable housing with enough bedrooms to accommodate bigger families.

A former police chief who helped pioneer community patrolling, Mayor Potter has 14 grandchildren and says a city's health should be measured by its youngest citizens. "We can't let Portland become a retirement city or a city without neighborhood schools," he said ...

Other cities that have tried to reverse the family outflow have had mixed success. As mayor of Seattle for 12 years, until 1990, Charles Royer started an initiative called KidsPlace, which has been widely copied by other cities. It included marketing the city's neighborhoods to young families, building a small mix of affordable housing, and zoning and policing changes to make urban parks more child-friendly.

Mr. Royer said he was ridiculed for signs placed around town proclaiming "Seattle is a KidsPlace" and took criticism from social service agencies who thought bringing in more families would only place more demands on the limited money they had.

(Via Peter Gordon.)

Red light cameras, though they’re justified on public safety grounds, are often installed for different reasons.

Here’s Radley Balko:

[T]he most troubling thing about traffic cameras is the way city governments grow dependent on the revenue they generate. Bethesda, Md., was caught shortening a yellow light at the city's most lucrative red-light camera, in an effort to squeeze more cash out of its motorists. When tickets dropped off from existing speed cameras in Washington, the City Council simply installed more, and raised the fines. Sacramento now charges motorists $351 for a single red-light violation.

Flashback: DC’s Mayor Williams really likes those traffic cameras that help officials fine drivers:

"There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp.

In the letter, Mr. Williams was seeking support for the District's $14.6 million contract with ACS State and Local Solutions, which the council later approved. ACS, a private company, handles fines for the city's automated traffic-enforcement program.

While the mayor made it clear that he has an urgent need to grab revenue, he didn’t express much urgency about improving public safety. In fact, he didn’t even mention public safety. Oops:

A spokeswoman for Mr. Williams yesterday said that the mayor's views about red light and speed cameras haven't changed and that he probably should have included "an extra sentence about public safety" in his letter to Mrs. Cropp.

"The mayor has always felt that with the red-light cameras and the other equipment we use to catch people who are speeding, safety is our foremost goal," said Sharon Gang, spokeswoman for Mr. Williams.

And if the cameras are positioned to maximize safety, not revenue, it’s still not clear they make streets safer:

[S]everal studies in recent years--in places like San Diego, Charlotte, N.C., and Australia ... have shown that the reduction in side-angle collisions at the intersections has been wholly or largely offset by an increase in rear-end accidents ...

For the third time in less than a week, New York City subway trains were halted [Tuesday] and thousands of commuters were delayed at the peak of the morning rush, this time because of a fire at the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn that snarled service on the Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 lines as well as 13 trains on the Long Island Rail Road …

There was a bit of good news recently. After this fire made a mess of the A and the C, service was restored in a matter of weeks, not years as was initially suspected.

And yet:

Major subway disruptions have occurred with striking regularity throughout the city in the past two months, unleashing a torrent of frustration from riders and elected officials, coming as they have on the heels of the second fare increase in two years … But transit officials insisted yesterday that the system was better than ever and that they were victims only of higher expectations brought about by their success.

Seems like there are bigger issues looming:

The recent disruptions have occurred at an especially sensitive time for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the transit agency's parent. The authority's executive director, Katherine N. Lapp, spent yesterday pleading with state lawmakers for $17.2 billion, the amount officials insist is needed over the next five years to prevent the transit network from declining.

Also yesterday, the City Council said it would hold an emergency hearing next week on the state of the subways. "It is clear that this system is in a state of crisis," declared the Council speaker, Gifford Miller, who is running for mayor.

The disruptions have also begun attracting the attention of the authority's board. "I wouldn't want to presuppose that because we've done a good job, people should be happy about it," said Barry L. Feinstein, a board member since 1989. "I don't come from that school."

Mr. Feinstein, the chairman of the board's New York City Transit committee, said that despite $40 billion in upgrades since 1982, "all the difficulties of the system are just enormous," from outmoded signals to unprotected wiring. "Those are things that only can be handled on a slow, deliberate pace, picking the priorities of things that should be done, so that mega-problems don't develop," he said.

Whole story is here.

Sure, it gets a lot of press, but offshoring by state governments occurs much less often than most people realize.

Check out this report form the California State Auditor.

This list breaks down which states stick it to you most (and which stick it to you least), when it comes to various kinds of taxes.

Just don’t go buying gas in Rhode Island (31 cents per gallon tax), cigarettes in New Jersey ($2.05 tax per pack), or anything categorized as retail in Alabama where state and local sales tax can reach 11 percent.

Pennsylvania spent $2 billion on an economic stimulus program. Last year 70,500 jobs were created in the state.

But did the program create those jobs?

Guess what the governor’s answer is.

I have a piece in today’s LA Daily News:

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa are sure to break out some great rhetoric about reducing the city's epic traffic jams as we lead up to their runoff sequel. We've heard it before.

Every election, politicians promise to reduce traffic, which nevertheless gets worse. Lawmakers say if more of us would just get out of our cars, traffic wouldn't be so bad. They've tried everything, they say, to pry us from our sport utility vehicles -- from rail transit to "walkable" neighborhoods to car pooling, which is, itself, a partial concession to the car's dominance.

Yet nothing seems to work.

In its share of work trips, transit continues to slide, as does walking, and despite the nation's most extensive car-pool lanes system, car pooling continues to drop. But some good news has squeezed through the L.A. gridlock -- telecommuting.

Read on, here.

That’s right, it’s today.

Amazingly, 12 million people die each year because they don’t have access to clean and safe water.

Here's Fredrik Segerfeldt:

There may be a solution to what had been an insoluble problem. In recent years, a small number of developing country governments have turned to the private sector for help and have introduced market-oriented reforms in the water sector. Overall, the results have been encouraging.

But, as is often the case:

The attempts at privatization have met vociferous resistance. A coalition of non-governmental organizations, trade unions for public employees, and international organizations such as the United Nations have done all they can to limit the role of the market and the business community. And they have had some success. The pace of privatization has slowed down, and the World Bank, one of the major advocates of privatization, has gone on the defensive. Global water companies are less and less inclined to invest in developing countries, for fear that their efforts may be nationalized.

This is a tragic development, and all the more so since the anti-privatization lobby is wrong on almost every count.

The Federal Times ran an article yesterday detailing how the SBA Disaster Assistance Office has increased efficiency and improved service delivery by implementing the program performance assessment embodied in OMB's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART):

Managers at the Disaster Assistance Office of the Small Business Administration used to gauge their program’s success by tallying the number of loan applications they received and processed each year. No more.

Under pressure from the White House to demonstrate that the office is helping those it was created to serve, managers realigned their measuring sticks to match customers’ needs, rather than their own processes. Since 2003, managers at the SBA Disaster Assistance Office have been calculating how their loans benefit disaster victims. They count the number of days it takes a small-business owner who gets a loan to fully repair his damaged property. And they hired the University of Michigan’s School of Business to conduct annual customer satisfaction surveys.

. . . .

The change is a result of the Office of Management and Budget’s results-measuring questionnaire, the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). PART’s 25 questions ask managers to define their programs’ goals, management and results.

. . . .

Managers said the new evaluation tool helps them manage their programs better.

“It clearly helps us to focus on, for example, if the mission’s clear, is there duplication in the process. It forces you to continually look at program efficiency. Obviously there’s a big emphasis on results and measuring those results,” said Herbert Mitchell, associate administrator for SBA’s Disaster Assistance Office.

To prepare for the PART evaluation, Disaster Assistance revised its goals in 2003 to focus more squarely on the program’s customers — small business owners and homeowners with uninsured losses in disasters. The office measures how fast money gets to loan recipients by calculating the percentage of initial disbursements made within five days of loan closing. It looks at whether the loans help keep damaged businesses in business by calculating the percentage of businesses still operating six months after they get their loans. And it surveys its customers to gauge their satisfaction with the program.

Mitchell said PART created a cultural change in the way managers run their programs.

The program’s new focus has made a difference. It was rated moderately effective in 2003 by OMB and effective in 2004. OMB recommended the program’s funding be increased to $138 million in 2006, up from an estimated $112 million in 2005. That is a 23 percent increase, well above the generally flat budget growth most non-Defense programs are experiencing in the 2006 budget.

Read the whole thing.

A small blurb from today’s NYT (no link available):

Rubella, a virus that once caused tens of thousands of birth defects and deaths in a single outbreak, has been eliminated from the United States, health officials say. But Americans must still vaccinate their children, and pregnant women must still ensure they are immune because the disease exists elsewhere, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The agency said that in 2004, nine rubella case were reported in the United States, all originating in other countries. Rubella, also known as German measles, is a usually mild viral infection that causes fever and rash, but early in pregnancy it can cause birth defects.

Too bad this issue probably won’t get much more ink than this.

Don Boudreaux has more scoop.

It’s tough to be a champion of the proletariat when you’re on Forbes’ “world’s richest people” list:

Cuban President Fidel Castro has criticized Forbes magazine for the "infamy" of listing him among the world's richest people, with a net worth of $550 million.

How does the 78 year-old dictator rake in all that dough?

The magazine said Castro derived his fortune from a web of state-owned companies that include retail conglomerate CIMEX, pharmaceutical company Medicuba and a convention center near Havana.

But according to a Cuban government press release:

"The revenues of Cuban state-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong …"

(Via Mises blog.)

Germany is in bad shape, and yet the political class has resisted following the lead of many formerly communist nations and their tax-cutting ways.

That is, Germany has resisted, until now.

Making the air cleaner isn’t about getting people out of their cars (particularly if they’re new cars), and it isn’t about getting new car drivers to become new hybrid car drivers. It’s about targeting gross polluters.

This radio address shows Arnold gets it.

Last week in a 4-3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the "Hometown Democracy'' measure -- a proposed Constitutional amendment which would have required voters to approve any changes to city and county growth management plans -- cannot be included on the 2006 ballot due to "emotional rhetoric" in its ballot summary.

According to the Sun-Sentinel:

"[T]he high court said the ballot summary was fatally flawed because of "impermissible emotional rhetoric that misstates the substance of the amendment."

The court said the problem was in the first sentence: "Public participation in local government comprehensive land use planning benefits the conservation and protection of Florida's natural resources and scenic beauty, and the long-term quality of life of Floridians."

The court said land-use plans deal with a lot more than "strictly environmental or aesthetic considerations." The court said those include safety, traffic, sewer service, parks and housing."

Like the recent Virginia Supreme Court decision striking down parts of Loudoun County's growth management program, the Florida decision doesn't really represent a moral victory for those of us opposed to ballot-box zoning, as the decision was essentially based on a technicality. But hey...we'll take it anyway!

If you aren't familiar with ballot-box zoning, Reason can help shed light on the issue. Check out these pieces:

• Research Abstract: Ballot-Box Zoning, Transaction Costs, and Urban Growth
• Poor Communities, Small Builders will Bear Burden of Ballot-box Zoning
• Working Paper: Ballot-box zoning, transaction costs and land development
• Smart Growth in Action: Housing Capacity and Development in Ventura County
• Market Oriented Planning: Principles and Tools

Even ardent supporters acknowledge that the Kyoto Protocol will barely make a dent in global emissions trends, and at a tremendous economic cost (already $13 billion since its February inception, according to JunkScience.com's Kyoto Count).

So Tech Central Station's Carlo Stagnaro naturally wonders, "Why Kyoto?" And he finds that you have to look past the environmental rhetoric to find the real motivations lurking under the surface:

"In fact, there is an inherent imperialist temptation in the climate treaty. Paul Driessen's book Eco-Imperialism largely deals with the implications of Kyoto. He shows that, if you put aside the questionable theories underlying the climate treaty, the single most important cause of pollution is poverty. Thus, if you sincerely aim to reducing the former, you have to defeat the latter - and only free market institutions provide an efficient way to do that. However, most international organizations, including the EU and the UN, stick with Kyoto. So do some corporations.

Why? On the one hand, climate policies are redistributionist policies, so the recipients of redistributed money (for example, the renewables industry) have an incentive to support them. Other industries are lobbying their governments to be protected from foreign competition - and environmental regulations work as non-monetary trade barriers, since they result in the exclusion of some potential competitors (that are not able to meet the requested standards) and cause higher costs - thus less competitiveness - for others. Finally, as Driessen puts it, "The EU's self-interest is highly visible in its insistence that Ireland, the United States, Eastern Europe and other nations adopt a system of 'global tax equity' or 'tax harmonization.' This is bureaucratic code for a compelling the United States to raise its taxes to EU levels, to prevent 'disruption' and eliminate 'unfair and harmful tax competition'." In other words, most EU governments are willing to make economic life more difficult in order to maximize their power over society.

If this is true, one has to admit there is nothing noble in promoting climate policies. Nor could their outcome be desirable. Inefficient industries and politicians in power would be winners, but everyone else loses."

Related to the previous post, is the hubbub over steroid use in baseball, and why our elected leaders are poking their noses into this issue.

Here are two pieces by Matt Welch:

Jock Sniffing: Congress has no business examining baseball's urine

George Bush vs. Barry Bonds: The government's effective smear campaign against baseball's best player

And here's another Reason piece, this one by Dayn Perry, which considers the health effects of steroid use:

Anecdotal accounts of harrowing side effects are not hard to find -- everything from "’roid rage" to sketchy rumors of a female East German swimmer forced to undergo a sex change operation because of the irreversible effects of excess testosterone. But there are problems with the research that undergirds many of these claims. The media give the impression that there’s something inevitably Faustian about taking anabolics -- that gains in the present will undoubtedly exact a price in the future. Christopher Caldwell, writing recently in The Wall Street Journal, proclaimed, "Doctors are unanimous that [anabolic steroids] increase the risk of heart disease, and of liver, kidney, prostate and testicular cancer."

This is false. "We know steroids can be used with a reasonable measure of safety," says Charles Yesalis, a Penn State epidemiologist, steroid researcher for more than 25 years, and author of the 1998 book The Steroids Game. "We know this because they’re used in medicine all the time, just not to enhance body image or improve athletic performance."

The Friday night lights in Texas could soon be without bumpin' and grindin' cheerleaders. Legislation filed by Rep. Al Edwards would put an end to "sexually suggestive" performances at athletic events and other extracurricular competitions.

"It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down," said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House...

Under Edwards' bill, if a school district knowingly permits such a performance, funds from the state would be reduced in an amount to be determined by the education commissioner.

Whole story is here.

Even in anti-terror funding.

From a recent AEI study:

We conclude that a large portion of homeland security-spending decisions are made on a political basis rather than on a sound cost-benefit analysis …

Surprised?

He’s our new trade rep.

Daniel Drezner has the extended scoop.

Here are some encouraging words from Portman:

As you and I have discussed, open markets and better trade relations are key components to a more peaceful, a more stable and a more prosperous world. Through expanded trade, the roots of democracy and freedom are deepened. [For more on this theme, see this paper.]And here at home, trade policy opens markets to create jobs, a higher standard of living and greater economic growth.

Drezner mentions this recent Cato paper which analyzes how members of Congress vote on trade:

An analysis of voting on 23 key issues in the 108th Congress finds that few members vote consistently for free trade. In the House, 22 Republicans and 3 Democrats opposed barriers and subsidies in more than two-thirds of the votes they cast. The most consistent free traders were Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Michael Castle (R-DE), Susan Davis (D-CA), Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Jim Ramstad (R-MN), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) …

In the Senate, 15 Republicans and 9 Democrats voted as free traders. The most consistent were John Sununu (R-NH), Wayne Allard (R-CO), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Pat Roberts (R-KS).

From Washington state:

Gov. Christine Gregoire yesterday announced plans to cut 1,000 state government middle-management jobs in a move widely seen as a prelude to a budget proposal that will include more cuts and a tax increase.

Saying the state has "too many people pushing paper," Gregoire said the job-cuts proposal would save $50 million. "We must reduce bloated middle management."

Gregoire announced other cost-saving measures as well, such as changing the way state agencies buy goods to get cheaper prices and closing the state film office. Most of the items she outlined, including the layoffs, require approval by the Legislature. Altogether they're projected to save a little more than $120 million, an amount that does little to offset a budget shortfall estimated at more than $2 billion.

What kind of tax hikes are under consideration?

Options that have gotten the most discussion lately by lawmakers include so-called "sin taxes," on items such as cigarettes, and bringing back an estate tax that was knocked out by a recent state Supreme Court ruling.

This just in:

The sponsor of a Senate bill to bar Colorado from using offshore workers to perform state services pulled the plug on the measure Tuesday after budget analysts said it would cost taxpayers $24 million.

The death of Senate Bill 23 represents the second year in a row that the bill - sponsored by Lakewood Democrat Sen. Deanna Hanna - has failed …

Republicans and Gov. Bill Owens attacked SB 23, charging it would force higher taxpayer costs, hamstring contractors and scare away foreign companies …

Sen. Jim Dyer, R-Centennial, called the legislation's demise "healthy," saying the $24 million price tag probably was too low …

This year, the Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration calculated the bill would raise costs by $28 million to $73 million.

But Hanna promises to come back next year, with yet another bill. And you can bet she’ll bring her government-as-jobs-program worldview with her:

"We owe it to the people of Colorado to keep good-paying jobs in our country," Hanna said on the Senate floor.

Reason cartoonist Peter Bagge on monorail mania in his hometown, Seattle.

BTW, here’s The Simpsons episode he mentions, and that famous song:

Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail! ... What'd I say?

Ned Flanders: Monorail!

Lyle Lanley: What's it called?

Patty+Selma: Monorail!

Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail!

[crowd chants `Monorail' softly and rhythmically]

Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud...

Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.

Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?

Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.

Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?

Lyle Lanley: You'll all be given cushy jobs.

Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?

Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level.

Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.

Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!

All: [singing] Monorail!

Lyle Lanley: What's it called?

All: Monorail!

Lyle Lanley: Once again...

All: Monorail!

Marge: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...

Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!

All: [singing] Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
[big finish]
Monorail!

Homer: Mono... D'oh!

President Bush's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is hearing testimony from economists and tax experts. The president is hoping to live up to his State of the Union promise to overhaul what he called the "archaic, incoherent" federal tax code -- while at the same time grappling with a deep budget deficit. This summer, the nine panelists are expected to offer several options, including one that largely keeps the current structure.

Economist bloggers Tyler Cowen and Max Sawicky agreed to vent their own frustrations -- and make their own arguments for change.

Read the exchange here.

Related to the previous post is a story I pointed out last year:

Travelers caught with illegal drugs at Nashville International Airport are allowed to go free without arrest about half the time, recent statistics show.

In the past four years, airport screeners and airport police found an increasing number of people with illegal drugs — a side effect of searches for weapons, bombs and other illegal items that ramped up after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, records and interviews with airport police show.

Chief Duane McGray, who heads the airport's Department of Public Safety, said his officers were using more discretion as the intense bag searches continue and his officers encounter small amounts of marijuana.

McGray would prefer that his officers be available to protect the public from more serious threats, rather than spending hours writing reports and in court for minor marijuana crimes, he said yesterday.

''Our primary responsibility is airport security,'' McGray said. ''We have to make judgments about where we put our resources.''

Sure crime rates are going down, but one of the most unsettling things around is our nation’s startlingly low clearance rate for violent crimes. In most cases (53 percent) no one is even arrested, let alone convicted. The clearance rate for property crimes is even more pitiful.

And yet marijuana arrests shot up by 165 percent between 1991 and 2003 (from 287,850 to 755,000).

This, according to a lengthy report by NORML (via Jacob Sullum). And the huge increase in arrests:

was not associated with an increase in marijuana's price or a reduction in marijuana use, availability, potency, treatment admissions, or emergency room mentions.

The states with the highest per capita marijuana arrests were Nebraska, Louisiana, Wyoming, Kentucky, and Illinois.

How much does it cost state and local governments to enforce their marijuana laws? About $7.6 billion per year or $10,400 per arrest.

Perhaps that money could be better spent rounding up some more rapists and robbers.

Chicago officials took the first tentative steps Tuesday toward installation of a citywide wireless network that would allow residents to connect to the Internet from easy chairs, school desks and office break rooms …

How nice of them.

But I’ve got to assume that a lot of the motivation comes from the next line:

and provide City Hall with a major source of new revenue.

How much revenue might the plan generate? Says Ald. Edward Burke:

"I think the sky is the limit. Who knows how much could be realized?"

For more on this version of government greed, see the bottom half of this post.

While looking into helium privatization (see previous post), I came across Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address in which he mentions the recently-axed program by name:

We propose to cut $130 billion in spending by shrinking departments, extending our freeze on domestic spending, cutting 60 public housing programs down to three, getting rid of over 100 programs we do not need, like the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Helium Reserve Program.

Then, moments later, this rather strange admission:

For years, Congress concealed in the budget scores of pet spending projects. Last year was no different. There was $1 million to study stress in plants, and $12 million for a tick removal program that didn't work. It's hard to remove ticks; those of us who have had them know.

Then right back to business as usual:

But, I'll tell you something; if you'll give me the line-item veto, I'll remove some of that unnecessary spending.

Or more evidence that we’re doomed?

Should we be pleased that the government’s helium reserve (begun 80 years ago) is being dismantled or frustrated that it took so long?

Believe it or not, the National Academy of Sciences was tasked with determining “whether such disposal of helium reserves will have a substantial adverse effect on U.S. scientific, technical, biomedical, or national security interests."

The NAS produced this report, and this verdict:

Based on the information assembled for this report, the committee believes that the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 will not have a substantial impact on helium users.

Rest assured, helium users, you will be able to fill those party balloons and marvel at the quiet glory of the Good Year blimp.

My colleague Geoff suggests that my previous post might be off the mark:

Yes, often the final bill isn't available with enough time to read it before a vote. However, versions of the bill (and any amendments to the bill would be clearly demonstrated in a new write up) would be available for review with plenty of time.

While I agree that some bills can get pushed through with little or no debate, I do not buy into (in many cases the cop out) from our elected officials that they didn't know what they were voting for. Fact is, they know from day one.

Since most laws add new bad stuff (rather than subtract old bad stuff), I suppose I have a natural bias for slowing down the process by any means necessary. Perhaps having a “cooling off” period would allow journalists and government watchdog groups to expose pork before it becomes law. Then again, it’s true that those who agitate for more spending could just as easily use the cooling off period to mobilize and claim the bill is underfunded.

Maybe we’re just doomed.

Neither can your Congressman.

Here’s Julian Sanchez:

[O]ne factor driving wasteful legislation is the speed with which bills are passed, not only foreclosing debate but rendering it effectively impossible for most legislators to have even read the laws they're voting on in any detail.

D.C., San Diego, and now Chicago:

With no guarantee of more state transit cash, CTA officials are set to pick from a grim menu of scenarios that could increase train fares to as much as $3.40, or cut bus and rail service severely enough to put 3,500 employees out of work.

If you look at highway fatality rates, rural states stand out as having particularly perilous roads. Is this because they tend to have less strict seat belt laws?

What about states like Vermont and New Hampshire which (as of 2002) did not have primary seat belt laws and yet enjoyed the first and third safest roads in the nation?

A new study offers some other, pretty intuitive, reasons why rural roads are so dangerous:

poorly designed country byways with rolling hills, sharp curves and steep drop-offs from pavement to the shoulder, which can cause drivers to lose control. And because the roads are in isolated areas, it is often difficult for emergency workers to get injured drivers and passengers to the hospital in time to save their lives...

That’s how many billionaires there are worldwide, and more than half of them are self-made. This according to Forbes’ annual ranking of the richest of the rich.

During the last two years, 215 new people joined the club? Why so many new members?

In part, the rich can thank improved global economic factors for their swelling fortunes. Bullish world stock markets, a weak dollar and surging commodity and real estate prices have all played a part. But so has old-fashioned entrepreneurialism. Take Google. In the seven years since its founding, two Stanford graduate students have grown a computer science project into a world-class corporation, with a market capitalization of nearly $49 billion. Along the way, they have become billionaires, seven times over.

Wine fumes may cloud his breath, but not his mind. The Wine Commonsewer busts on a new study out claiming gets consume about 45 hours of media a week. What a crock. Kids are hardly out of school that many waking hours. Mike does a good job breaking down the BS.

Neil Peirce praises Euroliving and scolds Americans:

While the American Dream emphasizes growth and personal wealth, Europe's focuses on sustainable development. It's true the idea of livable towns and cities has been gaining here recently, but the Europeans are centuries ahead of us in building and nurturing them. And as opposed to our profligate energy policies, the Europeans tax fuel (especially gasoline) much more heavily and are well ahead of us in developing new renewable energy sources.

According to Christopher Hume, the American way of life is the verge of collapse. And he points to a new documentary, The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, to make his case:

[The documentary's] argument is simple: suburbia couldn't exist without cars, and people couldn't afford to drive those cars without endless cheap gas. As they also make clear, the amount of oil pumped out of the ground is expected to peak sometime between now and 2010 at the latest. After that, every gallon of gas grows more and more expensive, rendering auto-based sprawl obsolete.

Pierce neglects to point out that suburbanization is occurring all over the world, even in cities that would fit his definition of “livable” and “sustainable,” even where fuel taxes dwarf ours, even where transit systems are extensive. And what about that oil shortage?

Sprawl foes are particularly given to hyperbole. Here’s a good one:

"The whole suburban project can be summarized pretty succinctly as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world," explains author James Howard Kunstler."

Utah's first.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. today signed the Carson Smith
Scholarships for Students With Special Needs Act. The first school
choice program to be enacted in 2005 authorizes the distribution of
scholarships for Utah's special needs children to attend private
schools.

For more info. go to Alliance for School Choice.

According to Education Week:

The Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarships legislation would provide $1.4 million in voucher money to help parents of students with disabilities send their children to private schools, both secular and religious, that place particular emphasis on helping such students.

About 50,000 students in the state would qualify for the scholarships, Ms. Peterson said, but only a few hundred would be able to receive the funding under the current amount of money allotted for the program. Students with disabilities that range from brain injury to speech or language impairments would be able to apply for the scholarships, which could pay out nearly $5,500 per student annually.

Lots of people get hung up on wages and income. Are they going up, down, stagnating? Those things are important but often the big picture gets missed.

After all, we don’t want higher incomes for their own sake. We want to be able to buy more stuff (food, health care, cars, vacations, video games, etc.). As long as we have this stuff, who really cares how many zeros our paycheck has?

A while back a great book called Myths of Rich and Poor picked up on the optimistic spirit of Julian Simon and explained that things are indeed getting better. And they're getting better for the poor, too.

Today’s poor enjoy all sort of things, from medical care to luxuries like television, air conditioning, and ice (can you imagine how hard it was to get ice before refrigeration?) that weren’t available even to kings in centuries gone by.

And, in terms of material conditions, America’s poor compare very favorably to the middle class in much of Europe. (See also this study from Sweden’s Timbro.)

This Ron Bailey article picks up the discussion:

[T]he conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world's poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging," income growth does not tell the full story.

Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries ...

So why is the quality of life for the world's poorest people improving, and in fact converging toward levels found in the richer countries? Because improvements become cheaper over time. Kenny notes: "Broadly, the results suggest that it takes one-tenth the income to achieve the same life expectancy in 1999 as it took in 1870.

How ironic that those who champion the efficiency seeking innovations that lower prices and improve living standards are often regarded as heartless. It's true that those folks might not be motivated by compassion in the conventional sense, but the end result seems pretty compassionate.

That’s what the headline says, and this time it isn’t D.C., it’s San Diego:

A four-year decline in Metropolitan Transit System ridership appears to stem from a failure to adjust to San Diego's changing residential and job patterns, the agency has concluded.

The 10.6 percent dip in bus and trolley boardings has occurred despite steps to increase service systemwide and an improvement in the regional job picture…

The analysis has major implications for the transit agency's strategy for balancing its $182 million operations budget against deficits projected to grow as high as $31 million by fiscal 2009.

It also comes in the middle of a route-by-route, stop-by-stop study of transit services, which may end with sweeping changes to transit schedules …

Despite a long-standing correlation between jobs and ridership, the 10.8 percent drop in ridership occurred during a 7.8 percent increase in jobs. But the manufacturing industry, which places thousands of workers at central locations with predictable work shifts, is down 15 percent since 2000.

This also shows that bus transit, even with its flexibility, has a tough time staying relevant in a changing society.

What could be done? The Allegheny Institute faces the same issue in its area:

Bus ridership at PAT has plummeted by almost 12 percent since 2000 following a very small rise from the 1996 level. In fiscal 2005, labor costs have skyrocketed because of health and pension payments. Indeed, total bus operating costs have risen an estimated 16 percent in two years. Unfortunately, during a period in which ridership was relatively flat or declining, PAT increased hours of bus operations by 20 percent from 1996 to 2002. As a result, riders per hour have plunged, pushing up per passenger costs.

Here AI offers some suggestions, including cutting underused routes and embracing competitive contracting.

The central point of the WaPo article referenced in the previous post is that folks in D.C. like Metro, but that doesn’t mean they actually use it:

Washingtonians love their subway. Four out of five people in the region have used the system, and 88 percent of those have a positive view of it. Similar numbers said it was reliable, comfortable and a good value. And 58 percent said they would support more funding for Metro, even if that means higher taxes, rather than face service cuts.

And yet:

According to a recent Washington Post poll, 9 percent of Washingtonians said they regularly use the subway to get to and from work. A third of those who don't take Metro said they could but choose not to, while nearly two-thirds said public transportation isn't an option for them.

Today, the District accounts for one in four jobs in the region. As a result, commuting patterns have splintered, and many workers go from suburb to suburb or travel well beyond the reaches of Metro.

"As the center gets to be less and less significant, it's tougher for transit to play the type of role it would like to play," said Alan E. Pisarski of Falls Church, author of "Commuting in America." "The demand is just not there."

When you listen to commuters the issue really isn’t’ that mysterious :

Nikki Herson took Metro to work once. She found the 30-minute walk from her apartment to Tenleytown tiring, the 25-minute ride to Shady Grove tedious and the 10-minute bus ride from there plain annoying.

John Wengle's Bethesda-to-Washington commute is the kind Metro was made for. But he's turned off by packed Red Line cars and what can be an hour-long venture. In a car, he does it in a tidy, convenient and comfortable 25 minutes.

And note some of the assumptions embedded in this sentence which considers why more people don’t use Metro:

[I]s it the fault of car-obsessed commuters unwilling to give up the comfort and convenience of their rides?

If a company offers a service and consumers don’t use it, is it the consumer’s fault for not using it or is it the company’s fault for not offering a better service?

The “car-obsessed” reference is a common one used by reporters. But motorists aren’t “obsessed” with their cars any more than office workers are “obsessed” with their computers. Like computers, cars simply offer more speed, flexibility, and convenience than the other options. Once something better comes along this “obsession” will wither away.

Bus transit is flexible; it can evolve as a community evolves. It’s easy to open new bus stops and create new routes. That’s good if you’re interested in accommodating customers’ preferences, not so good if you’re interested in simply giving customers what you think they should prefer.

Enter rail transit. It may seem strange, but many planners like it precisely because it’s inflexible. You can build it to serve areas with high employment concentrations, and since it offers a feeling of permanence, the hope is that future growth will cluster around the line.

But there is, of course, no guarantee that growth with cluster around rail lines. There’s not even any guarantee that rail lines will prevent existing development from leaving.

One example of the way the [Washington, D.C.] region has grown was what happened after WorldCom took over MCI. The bulk of MCI employees worked in the company's Washington headquarters and an office in Pentagon City, both within short walks of Metro stations. They eventually were shifted to WorldCom's campus in Loudoun County, more than 15 miles from the nearest subway stop and nowhere near a bus line.

Here Joel Kotkin says it’s time for planners and environmentalists to stop complaining about the suburbs because

both the notions of suburban decline or a big-time downtown revival are delusional. Since 1950, 93 percent of all metropolitan growth has taken place in the suburbs. More importantly, this pattern continued during the energy crisis and, despite the downtown hype, is showing no real sign of slacking off.

How’s this for a sobering factoid?

Over the last 15 years, some places witnessed a small yet welcome surge in inner-city residents, but, viewed as part of all the new housing units in the country, it remains tiny. In fact, all the growth predicted recently for the 30 top U.S. downtowns through 2010 turns out to be less than half the suburban growth of greater Seattle during the 1990s.

And after a recent up tick, cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Minneapolis have lost population since the millennium. So what’s an urbanist to do?

Help improve the ‘burbs:

Creating a better suburban future is a noble—and potentially very profitable—calling. Suburbia is maturing and evolving all around America, as seen in reviving suburban downtowns such as Naperville, Illinois, or in brash new "suburban villages" being built in places like Houston's Fort Bend County or in California's Santa Clarita Valley …

This critical work will do much to define the 21st-century modern city and to attempt to meet the challenges laid out by the early visionaries of suburbia—men like Ebenezer Howard or H.G. Wells—who saw the move to the periphery as a chance to build "a new civilization."

Interesting contrast in how much money is spent by the lowest and highest performing high schools in Houston. The three lowest performing high schools rank first, fourth, and thirteenth in terms of per-pupil spending in the school district. Parents and teachers at these schools have argued that they are low-performing because of a lack of resources.

Yet as the Houston Chronicle explains:

In contrast, HISD will spend from $500 to nearly $2,000 less per student this year at three of the school district's highest-performing schools: Lamar, Bellaire and Westside. Those schools, where more than three quarters of all seniors score above 1,000 on the SAT, occupy the three lowest spots on HISD's per-pupil funding list.

Of course, these low-performing schools have more money because they serve a higher percentage of low-income and minority students. Yet, up to $2,000 more per pupil is a huge bonus for working with low-income children. Just how much more money do you give low-performing schools before expecting student achievement to increase?

This shocking story about wasting school construction dollars in New Jersey demonstrates how centralizing school resources in the name of "oversight" can often cost big money.

The state agency overseeing New Jersey's massive school construction project paid $5 million to relocate a company from a Newark industrial park nine months after scrapping plans to build on the firm's site. . . .

Spencer said the corporation will have future properties fully in hand before paying relocation costs.

And here is the key shocking paragraph:

Last month, Acting Gov. Richard Codey directed the state's new Inspector General to review the corporation's activities after a Star-Ledger analysis found schools built by the corporation have cost, on average, 45 percent more than schools erected by local school boards during the same period without the agency's oversight.

The state agency must really be wasting a lot of money, because when local school boards build schools it already costs significantly more than the private sector.

On Thursday, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down much of Loudoun County's 2003 zoning rewrite that had practically shut down 2/3 of the county (about 300 sq. miles) to homebuilding.

According to the WaPo:

"The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday threw out Loudoun County's slow-growth regulations that had blocked home building on vast swaths of open space in the nation's fastest-growing county. The ruling on scores of challenges filed two years ago by property owners, developers and others opens the western part of the county to new growth. More than 50,000 additional houses could now be built in an area formerly closed to massive development.

. . . .

The Supreme Court did what some on the pro-development majority on Loudoun's Board of Supervisors have wanted to do since taking power last year. Supervisors who have long slammed the controls as an infringement on property rights appeared delighted with the court's ruling, and there was no indication yesterday that it would be appealed or that Loudoun officials would try to reinstate the regulations.

. . . .

The slow-growth push by supervisors on a previous board helped turn Loudoun into a closely watched test case in the national struggle over property rights and the environment. With its proximity to the nation's capital, its fastest-growing designation by the Census Bureau and tens of billions of construction dollars at stake, Loudoun's development debate has transcended the ordinary dust-ups over spreading U.S. suburbs."

For context, Loudoun sits about 25 miles west of DC and has been the fastest growing county in the US for years. It became a national posterboy for smart growth in the 90s, which generated a great deal of well-funded, vocal opposition among citizens and property rights folks. Growth has been THE #1 issue in the county for years, and as such is a primary driver in county politics. The current Board of Supervisors tilts pro-growth and were elected in part in a backlash against the extreme slow growth bent of the previous Board, who passed the regulations struck down Thursday.

Much of the growth over the last decade has been on the eastern side of the county, in the vicinity of Dulles Airport and several booming tech corridors. The other 2/3 of the county was massively downzoned in 2003 to slow (strangle, really) growth, with mandated minimum lot sizes jumping from 3 acres per home to a whopping 10, 20 or even 50 acres depending on location and development type. The Court struck down these density restrictions, as well as mandates for conservation subdivision design.

But this can't really be spun as a moral victory, as the Court's decision was based on a procedural technicality related to public notice for hearings. For the property rights side, this probably feels like winning a tied football game in the final seconds after a questionable pass interference call moves the ball within easy field goal range. Not a glorious victory, but hey, it still goes in the W column.

The good news is that the current Board of Supervisors is not likely to try to pursue the reinstatement of those same regulations again, with lot size requirements likely to settle somewhere in the 3-8 acre range. Of course, we at Reason would generally rather see market-driven--not mandated--densities, but just about anything would be an improvement in this situation.

Here's another take from the Loudoun Times Mirror. A reader responds to this article that:

"The reason these provisions were voided was because the court found that the average citizen couldn't tell from the notices the scope of the revisions under discussion, the scope of the impact to their property if adopted, or in some cases whether or not their property would be impacted. This means that the much-touted citizen input probably didn't include a number of citizens who didn't realize that they SHOULD participate. I read the documents of the decision, and it included a wonderful sentence that puts it in perspective, to the effect that a citizen shouldn't have to have a legal degree to tell what a public notice says."

Kudos to this reader. Governments (and lawyers) tend to make the public hearing process so arcane and unintelligible to the average citizen that most just choose to sit on the sidelines, unaware of even the most basic goings-on with regard to local land use and zoning, much less the implications of long range plans, subdivision and development codes, etc. I doubt that there's much of a "solution" to this state of affairs, as Americans definitely have the right not to engage in the community sphere. But government still has an obligation to make things as clear and transparent as possible.

On a personal note...I grew up in Leesburg, the seat of Loudoun County, and I have so many fond memories of aimlessly cruising the rural roads in bucolic, western Loudoun. Field parties around a bonfire a half-mile away from the nearest house were a particularly exhilarating experience that today's Loudoun kids may not get to replicate (probably not a bad thing from a parent's perspective, actually). The thought of subdivisions cropping up in what at the time seemed to me to be secret, uncharted places still brings a bit of a lump to my throat.

But as a kid, the languages of economics and planning were still foreign, so it felt like a raw, emotional sucker punch to see new homes spring up on what seemed like sacred space. But having become wiser to the world, it packs the same punch now to see private property rights trampled and families pushed further away from this wonderful area because they've been priced out by land rationing.

And I now realize that those secret, uncharted places didn't exist outside of my own mind...in reality, they were pieces of land owned by someone and were uncharted only in the sense of their future potential.

It's too bad that so many adults still view their communities with the child's mindset.

It’s simple. Decrease taxes and spending, get a good grade. Do the opposite, get a bad grade.

Cato has just released the 2004 version of its Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors.

Here’s what the top and bottom of the list looks like:

This year, four governors receive the grade of A: Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Craig Benson of New Hampshire, Bill Owens of Colorado, and Judy Martz of Montana.

Four governors receive Fs for their poor performance in dealing with the state fiscal crisis: Bob Holden of Missouri, Bob Taft of Ohio, Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, and James McGreevey of New Jersey.

Read the whole report here.

It seems so straightforward.

Smaller classes allow teachers to give more time to each student, and that boosts achievement. Or does it?

Here’s our Lisa Snell:

A recent British study has cast serious doubt on the commonly held notion that smaller class sizes can by themselves improve student achievement.

A team of researchers from the University of London studied 21,000 British students in grades 4 through 6 to determine the effects of class size on student achievement … The study found no evidence that children in smaller classes made more progress in mathematics, English, or science, even after accounting for specific characteristics of students in small or large classrooms …

The British study tracks similar findings from a large-scale study of California’s class-size reduction program completed last year by the RAND Corporation, which examined the standardized test scores over five years for pupils in 2,892 schools across the state. The RAND researchers found class size had little effect on student achievement in California.

Other nations who educate their kids better than we do often have rather large class sizes. And somehow Catholic schools have been able to do a good job teaching large groups of kids.

We often hear that homeschooling saps resources from public schools. A new study from the Nevada Policy Research Institute finds just the opposite.

Homeschoolers save taxpayers' money. Add private school kids, and lots of money is saved:

Based on 2003 data, the analysis shows an annual potential cost savings to Nevada taxpayers ranging from $24.3 million to $34.6 million attributable to homeschool students, and another $101.9 million to $147 million attributable to private school students, for a combined total of $126.2 million to $181.7 million.

Should we expect to see a pro-homeschooling campaign from the NEA? Probably not.

(Via Café Hayek.)

Who says only for-profit charter school operators and private schools seeking vouchers from public funds want to profit on the backs of our children.

As the Times Union reports from New York State:

Flights aboard the Concorde for vacations in England. Mortgage payments for homes in Florida, the Hamptons and Pennsylvania. More than $1 million in ATM cash advances.

State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had never before seen such a "systematic misappropriation of taxpayer money" by school officials.

I wonder if Ward Churchill has ever brought this up in class:

Slavery continues to blight the lives of many millions around the world. Although officially abolished in some countries two centuries ago, people trafficking, bonded labour and child labour still exist …

Slavery in Niger is not an obscure thing, nor a curious relic of the past, it is an intrinsic part of society today.

A Nigerian study has found that almost 8% of the population are slaves.

The story comes via Tom Palmer, who also recalls this:

Some years ago the New York Times Magazine ran a horrifying story on slavery in Africa. One quotation stuck in my mind: when a journalist interviewed a slave in secret, it took several attempts to ask the question of whether she had been raped by her master. After several rephrasings, she responded, “You mean, when they would come to breed us?” It apparently did not occur to her that there was any violation in the process. As the interpreter explained, “That’s what happens after five hundred years of slavery.”

The government announced the indictment and arrest of space tourism and telecommunications entrepreneur Walt Anderson, accused of evading $200 million (euro151 million) in federal and local taxes, the largest U.S. criminal tax case ever filed against an individual.

Anderson, chief executive officer of Orbital Recovery Corp., was accused of hiding income by using offshore corporations in the British Virgin Islands and Panama and a mailbox in the Netherlands …

If convicted, Anderson could face up to 80 years in prison. Anderson's attorney, John Moustakas, did not immediately return a call seeking comment ...

In February 2000, Gold & Appel, Anderson’s investment concern teamed up with the Russia-based Rocket Space Corporation (RSC) Energia, the builders of the Mir space station, to form MirCorp, a company that was to operate Russia’s aging space station as a commercial venture, leasing the station for advertising, scientific research, pharmaceutical processing, satellite repair, even as a future Internet portal (complete with 24-hour views of Earth from orbit).

Whole story is here.

(Via ISIL.)

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

More than 5.2 million Germans were out of work in February, new figures show. The figure of 5.216 million people, or 12.6% of the working-age population, is the highest jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy since the 1930s.

Earlier the government had forecasted 1.4% growth for 2005, but the actual figure turned out to be 1%. You know times are bad when forecasts of 1.4% growth are too optimistic.

The growth warning triggered anger even from government supporters, who said the Social Democrat-Green administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had to do more.

"We are not going to create more jobs with growth of 1%," Harald Schartau, head of the Social Democrats in the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told ZDF television …

The German government insists its efforts to tackle the stubbornly-high levels of joblessness with a range of labour market reforms are only just getting under way.

The core is the "Hartz-IV" programme introduced in January to shake up welfare benefits and push people back into work - even if some of the jobs are heavily subsidised.

According to the Federal Labour Office, the changes have contributed to the rise in the official unemployment rate.

Read the whole article here.

And, on a related note, check out Adrian’s earlier post on why the German economy has a tough time reaping the benefits of outsourcing.

Addressing the nation's governors, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates delivered a scathing critique of U.S. high schools Saturday, calling them obsolete and saying that elected officials should be ashamed of a system that leaves millions of students unprepared for college and for technical jobs.

Gates was speaking as the invited guest of some of the nation's most powerful elected officials, at a National Governors Assn. meeting devoted to improving high school education across the country.

"Training the workforce of tomorrow with today's high schools is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe," said Gates, whose $27-billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made education one of its priorities.

Read on, here.

Many tech leaders have expressed similar concern about the state of education, which is a big part of the outforcing problem.

Bet you won't hear about this one in the next Sierra Club newsletter... Despite repeated eco-activist claims that urban sprawl is gobbling up open space at alarming rates, apparently the U.S. has added 10 milllion acres of forest land since 1990:

WASHINGTON - Despite a booming population and urban sprawl, the United States has gained 10 million acres of forests since 1990. That's enough trees to cover all the land in New Jersey twice.

The increase, however, is spotty and probably temporary. Growth is mainly in the Northeast and Rocky Mountain states, while wooded acres dwindled in the South, Midwest and Pacific Coast.

"We're continually growing more than we're cutting," said Brad Smith, an authority on the nation's trees at Forest Service headquarters in Arlington, Va. "People think urban sprawl is eating all the forest - we can't say that."

(Hat tip: Planetizen.com)

Forget junior high students, politicians may be the most fad-following people around. Like those 8th and 9th graders, the peer pressure politicos face often encourages them to do the wrong thing.

If you’re an elected official and you want to be “with it,” there is of course the issue of big box retailers. Here you have two choices: ban them or clear the way for them by using eminent domain. In other words, don't just stand on the sidelines like a dope.

You have to show your love for hybrids by offering them special perks, you have to show that you’re hip to the technology scene by wi-fiing your town. Speaking of hip, you should offer tax breaks to performance artists or do anything possible to attract the “creative class” to your city or state.

Of course, you have to ban smoking, but that never goes out of style. You should get yourself a light rail system, a sports stadium, convention center, and possibly even a convention center hotel. How else are you going to make your home town “world class”?

And of course you have to push for anti-outsourcing laws like this one:

A hotly contested bill to stop Colorado from using offshore workers to perform state services won bipartisan approval from a Senate panel yesterday, triggering sharp criticism from Gov. Bill Owens.

Over the strong objections of business groups, the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee approved the anti-outsourcing measure 5-2. Senate Bill 23 now goes to the full Senate.

Under the bill, companies contracted by the state to provide a service - such as a call-center operation - would have to ensure workers in the U.S. do the job.

And don’t let anyone tell you that the purpose of government is to protect rights. The purpose of government is to raise as much revenue as possible by any means necessary.